Field Experience Reflections – Fall 2023 – ECS 303
October 18, 2023
Today was my first experience working in a classroom. I felt nervous but very excited to get to know the students in the grade 4/5 classroom! I wanted to make sure that I took note of their names as I met each of them so that I could learn and remember their names over the next couple of visits. On this day, we participated in a special education week event and had the opportunity to spend time with each class in the school from the first to the eighth grade. Our co-operating teacher delivered a lesson to each grade about binary coding and we helped the students in every class with the learning activity as they created a bracelet which represented their name in binary code. It was a great way to spend a first day as I was able to meet and work with many different students from the school while also become acquainted with the classroom space.
October 25, 2023
This week my peer teaching partner and myself developed a ‘Get to Know us’ game that we played with the students. The game entailed passing a big foam dice to the student who would roll the dice and ask a question from the board depending on what number the dice landed on. The questions that were listed helped us to share more about us with the students. We also included a ‘Student shares’ question where the student could share with us. We had the students say their names prior to reading the question that they rolled so that we could work on getting to know the students by name. The game was really fun and interactive – the class enjoyed it and I felt that the students became more comfortable with us as they got to know us a bit better.
November 1, 2023
This week my peer teaching partner and myself were invited by our co-operating teacher to deliver a lesson to the grade 4/5 students in science on natural and artificial light. Our co-operating teacher had a lesson and activity planned for the students and we were invited to lead them through the lesson and activity. To begin, we showed a video to the students that explained the differences between natural and artificial light. Following the video we used questioning and a class discussion to categorize different forms of natural and artificial light in a sorting chart with the students on the whiteboard. The students had some additional worksheets to fill in on the topic in their science duo tangs upon the closure of the lesson. This was the first lesson that my peer teaching partner and myself delivered to the class and we were happy to have a discussion with our co-operating teacher following the lesson in regards to areas for growth. Our co-operating teacher encouraged us to spend more time discussing with the class in depth the identifiable differences to ensure student understanding prior to moving onto the activities in the lesson.
November 8, 2023
This week my peer teaching partner and myself were asked to plan and play a game with the students with a goal of focusing on our classroom management strategies. We played a game entitled ‘Apple Pie’ with the students. In preparation for the game I made some classroom rules that I printed on apples and went over with the class to initiate expectations for behaviour and game rules. To provide students with more incentive to follow the rules the class would also be awarded with Dojo points which was their classroom currency that our co-operating teacher used to reward the students for completed work, excellent behaviour etc. The game entailed students having to say: “Apple Pie” in a manner that disguised their voice while another student would have to guess who said: “Apple Pie” in the voice. Before long we had the students laughing and they were all eager to participate in the game. Meanwhile we did a great job maintaining structure and implementing our classroom rules. Our co-operating teacher felt that we did a great job with the game and hoped to use it herself in the future as the students loved it so much!
November 15, 2023
This week I had an opportunity to teach my first individual lesson to the grade four math class. I developed a lesson on multiplication. My lesson was cross-curricular with Arts Education. To begin the lesson I went through a slideshow that I developed with an overview on patterns expressed throughout the multiplication table. Following this, students watched an instructional video on how to make their own multiplication flower. To close the lesson I had planned to have students create a multiplication flower garden by assembling their flowers into an array at the front of the class on the whiteboard. I ended up not making it through the whole lesson and my co-operating teacher mentioned that sometimes when lessons are cross-curricular or involve crafts with multiple steps they can take longer than you might think! This was a great learning experience as I realized that future lessons that I deliver which have arts education activities must be streamlined and organized in steps to be more efficient and finished in a timely manner.
November 22, 2023
This week I prepared and delivered another lesson on math to the grade four class. To begin the lesson, I provided students with twenty minutes to finish working on their multiplication flowers from the previous week. Once we had reached the allotted time to work on the activity, I had the students clean up their arts supplies and we moved on to the new topic. I prepared another lesson on multiplication for the students this week again and framed the lesson around getting the students to solve practical word problems using their multiplication skills. The students were tasked with deciphering word problems and turning them into multiplication sentences. We also went over how to calculate surface area using multiplication. I personalized the word problems and made them about my dog so that they got to know me a little better. During the closure of the lesson the students shared with me how they might use multiplication in their own daily lives to solve problems like mine, such as determining how many kibbles to feed a pet. I think that the students enjoyed learning about how multiplication could be applied to their daily living situations. My co-operating teacher thought that I did a much better job this week with staying on target for the set, development and closure sections of my lesson.
November 29, 2023
This was the final week of my fall 2023 pre-internship experience. My peer teaching partner and myself baked cookies for the students and prepared a small gift for our co-operating teacher as a sign of gratitude for having us in the classroom. I prepared a cross-curricular lesson in ELA and Health which encompassed reading a seasonal story about loneliness and giving to the class followed by having the students prepare short letters of hope for a deserving individual in their lives. Unfortunately, my daughter became ill with the flu this week and I was unable to attend my last day of my pre-internship experience which was disappointing – but I was thankful to have prepared this lesson in advance and look forwards to using it in a future class with my students. I was able to stop by the classroom on an alternative day to extend my gratitude and say goodbye to the class and my co-operating teacher.
Final Thoughts
I am so thankful for the time and opportunities that have presented for greater learning while attending my field experience in this grade 4/5 classroom. I learned so much simply by being present in the classroom and observing my co-operating teacher’s lessons, interactions and teaching strategies that she initiated with her students. Being presented with opportunities to develop and deliver my own lessons in a safe and structured environment where I was able to receive relevant feedback from my co-operating teacher was an invaluable experience that provided me with so much growth while also developing my confidence each week. This opportunity has challenged me to think more critically about my lessons and how I can provide adaptations for students with various learning needs. Additionally, I have been challenged to think of how I might approach implementing classroom management strategies and transitions in to my lessons to maintain structure and organization throughout the delivery of my lessons. I am really looking forwards to returning in the spring. I will be working on developing a unit in science for the grade 4/5 class and have already been brainstorming about the possibilities for learning!
